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01.23.12: Adam Harrison Levy
A History Of The World In 100 ObjectsAdam Harrison Levy reviews the book A History Of The World In 100 Objects.
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11.07.11: Elle Luna
Report from a Japanese Maid CaféGlobetrotting IDEO designer Elle Luna writes of her adventures among crazed anime addicts.
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09.11.11: Adam Harrison Levy
The Falling Man: An Interview with Henry SingerAn interview with Henry Singer produceder and director The Falling Man, a 90 minute documentary.
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08.15.11: Adrian Shaughnessy
The Politics of Desire and LootingThe part designers have played in the London riots.
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07.21.11: Michael Erard
Notes on Getting the Daily NewspaperMichael Erard tells of the experience of sharing the physical newspaper with his son.
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07.04.11: Jessica Helfand
The Look of FreedomIt was the American novelist William Faulkner who once observed that we must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it. So who am I to take issue with more contemporary interpretations of commemorative form?
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06.18.11: Adam Harrison Levy
A Tattoo, A Toothbrush and A PipeAdam Harrison Levy writes three stories for Father's Day: about being a father, about father-hood and about his own father.
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06.16.11: Elliott Earls
Make/DoThe vainglorious Mediocrity displayed by “artists” of every stripe.
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02.02.11: Jude Stewart
Grandma's Matchbook CollectionMy grandma collected matches. She scooped them up on business trips from the 1940s through the 80s, while buying ladies’ dresswear for a department store in Louisville, Kentucky.
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01.12.11: Steven Heller
My Big Fat Fast Food Feast at EatalyA comparison of the vast differences of Italy's Eataly to New York's.
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12.24.10: Mark Lamster and Alexandra Lange
Lunch With The Critics: Year-End AwardsMark Lamster and Alexandra Lange pick the best and worse moments in design for 2010.
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12.09.10: Rob Walker
Rob Walker's Collection of Bicentennial QuartersRob Walker shares his collection of bicentennial quarters.
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11.09.10: Adrian Shaughnessy
Minotaurs in Suburban EnglandEnglish designer Vaughan Oliver met Adrian Shaughnessy to show him preliminary work on a deluxe Pixies box set called Minotaur.
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11.04.10: Laura Tarrish
Laura Tarrish's Collection of Miniature ChairsLaura Tarrish shares her collection of miniature chairs.
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11.01.10: KT Meaney
The Library: A MuseumThe library at North Carolina State University is laden with gold. Books that seem "rare" or simply too special for public shelving have been, in my mind, erroneously stacked and "dewey decimaled".
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10.28.10: Andy Chen
Not Queer, But HumanAs a gay man and a designer, Andy Chen believes that part of the solution of homophobia lies in creating images that redefine the very way sexual orientation is understood and discussed.
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10.14.10: James Lapides
Graphic InterventionA slideshow containing images from Graphic Intervention: 25 Years of International AIDS Awareness Posters 1985–2010, now on view at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
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10.04.10: Michael Erard
It's the 16th Ed. of the Chicago Manual of Style and I Feel FineMichael Erard reviews the 16th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style.
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09.29.10: Adam Harrison Levy
The Wood StackerAll his work, freed him from a dependency on oil. His heat is local.
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09.13.10: Alexandra Lange
If These Walls Could TalkOn the ABC sitcom Modern Family, three different families are visually defined by their living rooms.
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09.09.10: Jessica Helfand
Fat ChanceThere's a long grounding for the appreciation of zaftig beauty in painting and sculpture — from the baroque beauties of Peter Paul Rubens to the geometrically rotund figures of Fernando Botero. So why is it so difficult to talk about people who are really fat?
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09.07.10: Jessica Helfand
The Real Skinny on the Real SkinnyThe is the first of two essays on the visual nature of body image.
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08.23.10: Jessica Helfand
In the Palm of Your Hand: Dexterity PuzzlesA selection of rare dexterity puzzles from the personal collection of Jessica Helfand.
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08.02.10: Meena Kadri
Two Rupees WorthNow that the dust has settled on India's launch of their rupee symbol we are starting to see its application beyond the initial fanfare.
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07.14.10: Jessica Helfand
Viva The Villain: A Review of Despicable MeIn an age in which last week’s Bernie Madoff is next week’s BP oil spill, villains are no longer the stuff of fiction. So when a really juicy fictional villain comes along — let alone two — it’s time to go to the movies.
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06.28.10: Kenneth Krushel
Bukhara: A Traveler’s NotesBukhara is one of the most ancient cities of the legendary Silk Road. Presented here is a slideshow of design and architecture from one traveler's visit.
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06.23.10: Jessica Helfand
The Next Great Graphic DesignerTonight on Bravo's "Work of Art: The Next Great Artist" the winning Penguin book cover design will be unveiled, which begs a few questions. We hope our readers will weigh in with their opinions.
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06.01.10: Jessica Helfand
Rome's MAXXI: Force Field as Field SpaceThe MAXXI center in Rome opens with a glorious, international exhibition and showcases a building that is likely to be as controversial — and as celebrated — as its designer.
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05.19.10: Helen Chang
Jugendstil: The Youth Style of Viennese Book ArtTurn-of-the-century Vienna was a magical, infectious brew. Viennese children’s book illustrations at the time were no exception.
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05.17.10: Alexandra Lange
The Maddening, Rewarding World of Design PeopleMost design people I know — don’t feel guilt over knowing what is priceless and what is junk. The film Please Give also thinks they know what it is worth.
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05.03.10: Michelle Hauser
The Leisure of Looking: A Pedestrian View in a High-Speed EraAs trolleys replaced the horse drawn carriage, only to be overtaken by the streetcar and the automobile, Booth Tarkington observes that “the faster people were carried, the less time they had to spare.”
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01.26.10: Andy Chen
Left Me SpeechlessOur work should not merely address the political injustices wrought by discriminatory laws: it should register the sense of loss inflicted on those who suffer them.
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12.14.09: Michael Erard
Notes on Being Born on SoilAt times you hear stories about patriots in exile who want their children to be born in the motherland and supplement by putting dirt from said place under a woman who is giving birth.
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12.01.09: Owen Edwards
Busted by Colombo, or, the Impediments of StyleThe restrained high style of the ad men in Mad Men has revived a painful memory of one of my life-changing moments.
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11.18.09: James Wegener
Metabolic Dark CityIn 1993, the City of Darkness, or the Walled City of Kowloon was demolished. To the 35,000 people living in this dense urban slum, the change was the end of a lawless existence.
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11.03.09: Steven Heller
Why Does John Baeder Paint Diners?John Baeder's goal for the past three decades has been to record on canvas and paper just about every diner and roadside eatery.
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10.15.09: Timothy Jack Ward
Gardens and Their DesignersWhen I loaded up my Budget truck and moved from New York to our nation’s capital, the last thing on, and the first thing off, was my plants.
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10.05.09: Owen Edwards
Not the Same Old Same OldIt’s hard not to agree that cars, though better designed and engineered than ever, are often pressed into plebian duty.
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10.01.09: Steven Heller
People in Glass ApartmentsPeople in glass apartments shouldn’t throw stones or other projectiles. Nor should they engage in private acts directly in front of their floor to ceiling windows.
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09.23.09: Karen Stein
The Plain Beauty of Well-Made ThingsJudd worked as an art critic in his early years in New York as he established himself as an artist. From 1959 until the mid-1960s, his art criticism was his primary, if not only, source of income
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09.10.09: Dmitri Siegel
Lost In the SupermarketDmitri Siegel gets lost in the Supermarket and encounters incredibly grippy toothbushes, spouts, nozzles, Thorstein Veblen and Adolf Loos.
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09.10.09: Kerry William Purcell
The Art of PsychographicsEach and every graphic design signifies a memory. A familiar sign, map or poster can often trigger a set of associations in the viewer, a series of thoughts and feelings that have their own unique trajectory.
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08.19.09: Adam Harrison Levy
Saul Leiter: ResurrectedSaul Leiter taught himself to paint, but his father did not approve. These early abstract works, dating from the 1940s, show a remarkably confident use of line, color and composition.
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08.18.09: Chappell Ellison
Compulsion: Where Object Meets AnxietyAt the age of 30, my brother turned to our mother and said, “I never thought I’d make is this far.” In his early 20s, he was officially diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
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08.17.09: David Barringer
Is There Bauhaus in IKEA?Is there Bauhaus in IKEA? A 90-year-old design philosophy may yet have something to teach today’s corporate mega-chain.
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08.17.09: Rachel Berger
Significant Objects: #1 Mom HooksSignificant Objects is a much-discussed experiment conducted by Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker. The third of five stories is by Rachel Berger...
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08.17.09: Teddy Blanks
Significant Objects: Porcelain ScooterSignificant Objects is a much-discussed experiment conducted by Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker. The fourth of five stories is by Teddy Blanks...
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08.17.09: Jessica Helfand
Significant Objects: Elvis Chocolate TinSignificant Objects is a much-discussed experiment conducted by Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker. The fifth of five stories is by Jessica Helfand...
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08.17.09: Adam Harrison Levy
Significant Objects: Star of David PlateSignificant Objects is a much-discussed experiment conducted by Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker. The first of five stories is by Adam Harrison Levy...
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07.09.09: Lena Dunham
On the Street in TokyoThe major internal conflict I experienced on my recent trip to Japan was whether to explore the old-world: Zendos, philosopher's paths, Kabuki, tatami mats, visits to ancient spaces — or the new one: anime, arcades and bars that serve liquor while also selling puppies.
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07.01.09: Adam Harrison Levy
Cars R UsAndrew Bush’s photographs, featured in his new book Drive, remind us just how intimate we have become with our cars.
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06.08.09: Steven Heller
Mad MusicIn 1962, I spent hours listening to Mad magazine’s first LP (Big Top Records), Mad “Twists” Rock ‘N’ Roll. Owning the record made me feel like I was part of a club, which latter evolved into the sardonic, ironic sixties youth culture. It brings me back to a time before art, design, and humor had to be sophisticated to be good.
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05.28.09: Angela Riechers
Hot TicketTo see a play or movie, or ride the Twentieth Century Limited, you needed a ticket, and the development of ticket-dispensing machines paralleled the growth of popular culture.
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04.19.09: Margaret Wertheim
Susan Boyle and The Beauty of CrochetI want to reflect here on Susan Boyle's massive appeal from a very personal point of view, for I have spent much of the last three years managing a project that harnesses the creative energies of hundreds of middle-aged female "nobodies": Crochet Reef Project
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04.14.09: Jessica Helfand
Land in Crisis: The Antelope Valley StoryCan the County of Los Angeles claim adverse possession, and rescind residents' rights to their own water? One plaintiff is fighting for the rights of landowners who are currently not pumping from the aquifer, and has mounted a class action suit in order to do so. She also believes that design can help solve the problem. Can it? What is at stake is the degree to which designers can lend their ingenuity to find a way to cut through this mess. And, in so doing, to help restore water to its rightful recipients.
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04.09.09: Jessica Helfand
What's The Story?And what becomes of all those dead tweets, anyway — all those long-expired, evaporated updates?
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03.23.09: Steven Heller
Japanese Face MasksYou may recall seeing in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, scores of surgical face-mask-wearing passersby navigating their ways through the dense futuristic metropolis that is a cross between Tokyo and LA. So I was totally surprised to find on my first trip to Tokyo that not only is it the custom to wear such masks everywhere, it's big business too, with a nod to graphic design.
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03.11.09: Jessica Helfand
My Facebook, My SelfBut as projections of ourselves, one's Facebook identity, made visible through one's photo albums, inhabits a public trajectory that goes way beyond who and what we are.
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01.19.09: Lorraine Wild
A Babylon of SignsFor a generation, since Venturi and Scott Brown’s Learning From Las Vegas, most Angelinos neither did not notice the steady proliferation of signs along their Southern California landscapes and strips, nor perhaps cared. With the turn of the century, that changed. For the last eight years Los Angeles has been engaged in a war with the outdoor advertising industry.
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01.05.09: Kerry Saretsky
Movable FeastWe all must eat; we all must drink. Together, these form the two most basic requisites of our existence. The restaurant is the watering-hole, the center point, the necessity. And yet restaurants do not just serve dinner; if you read between the lines on the menu, you’ll find they offer dinner, and a show.
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12.03.08: Steven Heller
My DadaWay back in 1965, as a fifteen years old, I was an early EVOtee. I had stumbled upon one of the first issues at a newsstand. The cover, which I remember vividly, had a photo collage of a serpent emerging from battle fatigues worn by America's commanding general in Vietnam, William Westmoreland. Haunting is not a strong enough word to describe the impact that this had on a teen just a year or two out of Valley Forge Military Academy, where, surprisingly, I had learned about the military impossibility of winning the war.
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11.03.08: Andrew Blauvelt
Towards Relational DesignIs there any overarching philosophy or connective thread that joins so many of today’s most interesting and increasingly diverse designs from the fields of architecture, graphic, and product design? I believe we are in the a third major phase in modern design history, moving towards an era dominated by relationally-based design activities.
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10.15.08: Dmitri Siegel
Design by NumbersDmitri Siegel discusses Stephen Baker's new book The Numerati and how data-mining and personalized content may impact design.
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10.02.08: Jessica Helfand
The Posters of PaduaIn the sixteenth century the University of Padua initiated a custom that has prevailed to the present day — a custom which boasts, as it turns out, a very prominent design component.
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09.30.08: Adam Harrison Levy
The Inventor of the Cowboy ShirtA few years ago, I found myself lost inside a shopping mall with Jack A. Weil, better known as Jack A, the man who, in 1946, invented the snap-buttoned cowboy shirt.
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09.15.08: Jessica Helfand
Second in a Series: CompletionsThe series, when shown on a single surface, carries with it a kind of implicit satisfaction that a series disseminated over time does not.
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09.04.08: William Drenttel
Whose Flag?Nearly a decade into a new century, I believe it is unacceptable for a design organization, foundation, board of directors, magazine or other enterprise, to mount an initiative with an all male panel of judges. Such behavior is no longer acceptable and should not be tolerated by a community of designers (or any other community).
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09.02.08: Thomas de Monchaux
Remembering Yves St. LaurentSo what can we learn from the presence of fashion within design, and of design within fashion? For example, and more precisely, what can we learn from the work of Yves St. Laurent, the iconic French fashion designer who passed away this Summer?
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08.18.08: Steven Heller
Canned LaughterThe verbal and visual puns of porta-a-potties are copious throughout this indispensable industry. Manufacturers and suppliers go to great lengths to make the portable toilet experience clean and sanitary, as well as warm and cute. Portable toiletry is only second after hair salons (i.e. Mane Street, Clip Joint, Hair Today, etc.) for warm and cute, albeit excruciating, pun names. And yet this is a dirty job, so why shouldn’t those who attend to our bodily hygiene have the opportunity to practice a little wit and double entendre?
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08.07.08: Jessica Helfand
First In A Series: CartophilyMostly unified by their one-to-two format, cigarette cards revealed countless variation in topic and scope, style and personality, seriousness of purpose and goofball whimsy. If the ardent collector defines the amalgamation of disparate items by retaining a fundamental organizing principle, then what is it, exactly, that guides the maker? And enthralls the viewer?
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07.14.08: Jessica Helfand
Annals of Ephemera, Part III: Aging 2.0Paper has a finite life span. It yellows and oxidizes and eventually disintegrates. But today, there are a host of specialty materials that protect and preserve paper so that, unlikely as it may seem, ephemeral materials may have found their very own fountain of youth.
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07.08.08: Andrew Flamm & Michelle Hauser
Folk PhotosThe onset of the digital revolution has made the period for using film finite. Processed prints are becoming obsolete. With the immediate option of discarding an unintended image, a rich library of our unselfconscious selves will no longer be recorded. But it lives here, in these beautiful, poetic and tactile objects.
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07.07.08: Randy Nakamura
Steampunk'd, Or Humbug by DesignIn this time of cultural recycling, Humbug is a word perhaps best used to describe Steampunk, a subculture supposedly born out of a mash-up of DIY (do-it-yourself), Victoriana, punk, science fiction, Japanese anime and the urge to re-skin one’s computer as 19th century bric-a-brac. If the number of recent articles in the mainstream press is any reliable barometer, Steampunk is the next big thing.
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06.30.08: Jessica Helfand
Reflections on the Ephemeral World, Part Two: FoodEver since the 16th century Italian Mannerist painter Archimboldo made portraits from the detritus of his dinner, the relationship between the visual and the edible has been something of a puzzle. Welcome to the world of foodistry: design with food.
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06.05.08: John Thackara
We Are All Emerging Economies NowI recently received an invitation to discuss design and development with a wonderful group of design peers in a beautiful location. But I have decided to decline the invitation. Why?
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06.05.08: Andrew Blauvelt
Over the RainbowJune marks the start of a month-long series of LGBT Pride celebrations in cities around the United States and the world, as well as the 30th anniversary of the rainbow flag — the de facto symbol of the LGBT community. While the visual and media focus of the celebrations have been the parades, the most enduring element is perhaps the rainbow.
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05.30.08: Jessica Helfand
Reflections on The Ephemeral World, Part One: InkAn elegy to the makeready — those sheets of paper, re-fed into a press to get the ink balances up to speed, leaving a series of often random, palimpsest-like, multiple impressions on a single surface — in the digital age.
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05.16.08: Jessica Helfand
Iron Man: The Screen Behind the ScreenIron Man is the fulfillment of all the computer-integrated movies were ever meant to be, and by computer-integrated, I mean just that: beyond the technical wizardry of special effects, this is a film in which the computer is incorporated, like a cast member, into the development of the plot itself.
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04.22.08: Adam Harrison Levy
The Passion of George LoisHow adman George Lois chronicled the sixties with his cover designs for Esquire magazine, with a peek behind the scenes at the legendary famous Muhammad-Ali-as-St. Sebastian photoshoot.
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03.24.08: Steven Heller
The Magic of the Peace SymbolThere was probably no more galvanizing nor polarizing emblem during the 1960s than the peace symbol. And perhaps few symbols have had origins surrounded in as much mystery and controversy
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03.21.08: Jessica Helfand
Viewer Discretion AdvisedOne of the great ironies of contemporary culture is the degree to which pro-forma warnings read as largely invisible. “Viewer Discretion Advised” tells us we’ve been warned...
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03.12.08: The Editors
Marc Rabinowitz: Prostitution FactsIn spite of the tawdry glamour of "high-priced call girls," let's remember that this supposedly victimless crime takes a vast human toll that goes far beyond the embarrassment of powerful men. Marc Rabinowitz’s project invites us to imagine prostitution’s stark statistics...
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02.17.08: Rick Poynor
Lost America: The Flamingo Motor HotelI found this old photo in a box at the back of my attic. It shows a motel in Flagstaff, Arizona where I stayed for a couple of nights in May 1978. I was 20, it was my first visit to the US, and for three weeks I had been touring around on Greyhound buses.
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01.30.08: Jessica Helfand
Gone, Baby, Gone (Things, Part II)From July 19, 1977 to February 28, 1981, the security staff at New York's Roosevelt Raceway kept a fastidious record of lost property. The result — 152 pages of wayward mittens, misplaced wallets and hundreds of personal items — is as much a record of the social history of a generation as anything I've come across in a long time.
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01.11.08: Cheryl Towler Weese
Is Apple Soft on Crime?Here's the real question: could a climbing crime rate and the rise of the iPod be related? Has the iPod's design increased its likelihood of theft, and if so, what role could Apple's designers play in developing solutions?
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12.22.07: Michael Bierut
The Most Hated Holiday Song in the WorldTen years ago, Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid attempted to create the most irritating song in the world. It's now available online, and it's perfect for the holidays!
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09.18.07: Dmitri Siegel
Designers and DilettantesDmitri Siegel discusses graphic design authorship and the impending release of Elliott Earls' new film, The Sarany Motel.
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07.10.07: Jessica Helfand
Cock-a-Doodle-Don'tWhere food is concerned, the relationship between what things look like and how we respond exists at its most primal level: what is a gut reaction, after all, if not something that attacks your gut?
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06.13.07: Tom Vanderbilt
On the Squareness of Milk ContainersDo you know, or have you ever wanted to know, why milk containers are square and soft drink containers are round? This and other questions of design are answered in Robert Frank's new book The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas.
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06.11.07: Michael Bierut
Everything I Know About Design I Learned from The SopranosLast night, after eight years, 86 episodes, and untold quantities of gobbagool, The Sopranos finished its run on HBO. And this is what we've learned, from a design point of view.
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05.31.07: William Drenttel
Al Gore for PresidentWriting as a designer, as a writer, as a husband and father, but most of all, as a human being — I believe we should draft Al Gore to run for the Presidency of the United States.
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05.28.07: Jessica Helfand
My Dirty Little SecretGardening is its own infuriating design challenge. You fret and you rethink and you second-guess yourself constantly, and then for one delirious, thrilling moment something blooms and you feel utterly triumphant. And then it dies and you are back where you started.
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05.17.07: Jessica Helfand
Ad Reinhardt, Graphic DesignerAd Reinhardt fretted about the meaning of life. He agonized about the purpose of painting. He questioned everyone, critiqued everything, and worked incessantly. In other words, he was a graphic designer.
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04.22.07: Jessica Helfand
The New Manifest DestinyWhen does a picture solidify a news story, and when does it merely sensationalize it? Decisions about words and pictures are made by editors and publishers, designers and photographers — but they are consumed by a public fully capable of an entire range of emotional responses. After this week's events at Virginia Tech, words and pictures do a poor job of communicating outrage and pain. And no amount of compositional ingenuity can reverse what happened.
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04.19.07: Jesse Nivens
In Search of Stock(y) PhotographyThat's right: in the alternate universe of stock photography, attactive people outnumber fat people 84 to one. As a culture, have we taken the idea of "overweight" and completely blocked it out?
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03.26.07: Jessica Helfand
Annals of Ephemera: Town & Country CookbookBook cover designers are visual choreographers who frame miniature narratives in order to tease prospective readers into wanting more. Which often means showing less. Or not.
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03.14.07: Jessica Helfand
Art Director KenArt Director Ken is is a charmed, if mildly cautionary tale, for it brings to mind the potentially superficial nature in which we judge a person, an identity — indeed, an entire profession.
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03.01.07: David Stairs
That (Other) 1970's: The Last King of ScotlandThe Last King of Scotland, Kevin McDonald's film about Idi Amin's notorious presidency, opened in Uganda to great fanfare. The VIP screening took place at Kampala's Cineplex, with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Forest Whitaker in attendance. The premiere was not targeted to the average Ugandan...
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02.19.07: Jessica Helfand
The Illusion of CertaintyArtist Allan McCollum aspires to an unprecedented scale with this "Shapes" project: his goal is to make enough shapes, assuming a population of approximately 9.1 billion by the year 2050, so that everyone on the planet can have one. Shapes aside, what's truly fascinating is the idea of the system: what is it about them that we hate to love and love to hate?
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02.05.07: Adrian Shaughnessy
"I Sold My Soul And I Love It"The current issue of Creative Review is "guest edited" by hip British advertising agency Mother. The theme, suggested by Mother, is I Sold My Soul And I Love It — a vastly contradictory statement, but one that invites debate over what it means to work in visual communication."
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01.19.07: Jessica Helfand
The Karaoke EffectThe lure of American Idol, in these early weeks, lies in precisely this shaky space: that illusory bubble populated by thousands of fame-seekers who fervently believe in their own righteous, if highly fictional talent. It's cultural fallout. Just as the karaoke singer imagines him or herself live and in concert before the screaming fans, so, too, does the illusion persist once the microphone is turned off.
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01.16.07: Michael Bierut
The It FactorIn their 1983 book Quintessence: The Quality of Having It, Owen Edwards and Betty Cornfeld created an elegant and influential treatise in what makes something the real thing, a lesson that Steve Jobs has obviously absorbed.
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12.29.06: Alissa Walker
War Is Over! If You Want ItWhen the star of the documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon is asked by a reporter what he thinks Nixon should do to end the Vietnam War, Lennon stares incredulously into the camera. "He should declare peace." As if this was the most obvious solution in the world.
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11.27.06: Jessica Helfand
How Hollywood Nailed The Half-PipePixar and Animal Logic have mastered a particularly persuasive (and as it turns out, rather literal) form of spin that makes Road Runner look like dryer lint.
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11.20.06: Michael Bierut
New HouseIn 1967, just after my tenth birthday, we moved from a cramped 1940s bungalow in an older Cleveland suburb to up-and-coming Parma, Ohio. I had been walking the earth for a full decade, but that fall I felt I was finally assuming my birthright as an American: a brand new house.
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10.29.06: Michael Erard
The G WordGoogle has launched an effort to keep people from using their name as an all-purpose verb. Don't want to be evil? Then don't act as if you can win if you constrain the creative productivity of language.
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10.22.06: Jessica Helfand
My Cup Holder Runneth OverWhen we're not hiding behind our nail-technician-primed hands, drinking our barrista-blended beverages, IMing, text-messaging, and push-button withdrawing more money from the ATM to pay for all of these things, who are we?
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09.24.06: Michael Bierut
The Golden Age of American CommercialismThe encroachment of commercialism into everyday life seems like a peculiarly modern phenomenon. Yet around one hundred years ago, America began a romance with salesmanship that today seems almost delirious. A 1922 business directory shows how great crass commercialism used to look.
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09.21.06: Jessica Helfand
Death 'N' StuffSmoking Kills: The label days it all. Or does it? Once the allegedly chilling skull and crossbones is marketed as a decorative pattern on a silk bowtie, its credibility as an mark of peril seems, well, somewhat questionable, begging the question: have we become so bored by life that we've inadvertently become inured to death?
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08.29.06: William Drenttel
What Ever Happened to Half.com, Oregon?But back in 1999, in its Netflix-like heyday, Half.com was hot. And it did something quite remarkable. As a publicity stunt, it bought a town and renamed it. Someplace in Oregon. I wondered what ever happened to Half.com, Oregon — the first dot com city in the world?
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08.20.06: Jessica Helfand
The Ovalization of The American MindOvals — emancipated from circular restriction, freed of rectangular rigidity — are a perfect metaphor for the way we live now. They're out of shape and flabby, non-committal and generic — like sensible shoes, practical and monotonous and dull.
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08.17.06: Dmitri Siegel
World 6.0: Same as the Old World?Edward Castronova's recent book Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games sheds some light on the increasingly tangled relationship between MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games) and the game of life.
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07.28.06: Jessica Helfand
A Good Pan Is Hard To FindOn baking a cheesecake and becoming a better designer: it's one big balancing act of artistry and skill.
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07.20.06: Jessica Helfand
The Global Curse of Comic SansIn this coastal region slung just below the Pyrenees, one might expect to see evidence of the enduring cultural tensions between Spain and Catalonia — different kinds of signs or symbols, for instance â€" but on the surface at least, no such rift is exposed. Instead, Catalonia clings to a visual language that celebrates the goofy: this is a country awash in Comic Sans.
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07.07.06: Jessica Helfand
The Right StuffPrada is yet another in a long line of stories in which posessions loom large, at once shining beacons of material success and wagging fingers of moral turpitude. When will we have enough stuff?
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06.08.06: Lawrence Weschler
Koppel to Cooper: Cool, Cooler, ColdHey, maybe that's the ticket for McSweeney's: Put some bigtime sexy celebrity on the cover, somebody huge and charismatic and irresistible, somebody like, you know...Ted Koppel! What then to make of this month's cover of Vanity Fair? The fact that the editors there, in offering Anderson Cooper up as the studmuffin du mois, may be an occasion for some serious concern.
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06.01.06: Jessica Helfand
"Oui, Oui, Oui" All The Way HomeOn a sweltering day last August, my daughter and I embarked with a friend on a 6-day tour of Paris: Kid Paris, the Paris of candy stores and carousels and more than a few weird new ice cream flavors.
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05.18.06: Julie Lasky
The Photography of Mark RobbinsMark Robbins' Households is a collection of portraits in which the sitters are sometimes sitting rooms (or kitchens or bedrooms), and the people are polished, draped, and arrayed like furniture. Composed to resemble architectural plans or elevations — or in some cases the triptychs of medieval altarpieces — the images represent home dwellers and their environments. Flesh, bone, brick, stone, contoured torsos, and varnished chairs assume equal status. The message is simple: You may not be what you eat, but you most certainly are where you live.
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05.14.06: Alissa Walker
Why Scientology is Good for HollywoodIf you live where I do, in the actual city of Hollywood, just a few blocks away from where the Oscars are held, you see the Church of Scientology as somewhat of a savior. Within a two-mile corridor along Hollywood Boulevard, the Church owns eight historic buildings, four of which are on the National Register of Historic Places. In a neighborhood where architectural triumphs evaporate with little remorse, Scientology is the most ardent preservationist force in town.
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04.30.06: Jessica Helfand
Disaster Relief 101: No Door Hanger Left BehindDoor hangers seem the perfect metaphor for FEMA's failure: they're one-dimensional, unnecessarily complicated, and basically useless.
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04.11.06: Jessica Helfand
The Propensity for DensityIt's like design's been on a diet and finally gets to eat that giant cheesecake: shifting notches on the belt buckle, we're so happy for the sugar high that we don't realize we're slipping. And slipping we are.
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04.04.06: Jessica Helfand
A Sequence in Time01:02:03 04/05/06 This number sequence in time will not occur again until 2106.
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03.16.06: Lawrence Weschler
Languorous Bodyscapes"The long, languid spread of her body makes the first and most lasting impression." And more on these sorts of landscape-bodyscape slippages by this seasoned The New Yorker writer, and recent author of Everything That Rises : A Book of Convergences.
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03.09.06: Dmitri Siegel
Broadcast vs. BroadbandViral video is on the rise, spreading from broadband to broadcast and back again. What are the opportunities for designers in this new genre?
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03.02.06: Jessica Helfand
Give Me Privacy or Give Me an ID CardThe proposed National ID Card further blurs the line between the privacy and full disclosure of personal data in the public domain. It's the Card's design that appears the final string that may either secure our rights as individuals or rip them apart.
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02.16.06: Jessica Helfand
What We Talk About When We Talk About Design HistoryAt the end of the day, being a design historian means being observant and fearless, stubborn and driven, principled, passionate and anything but lazy. It means going where you have to go to get what you need.
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02.02.06: Jessica Helfand
Freedom of Speech or Filching of Style? The New Law of Eminent Lo-MeinDIY design invading typography terrain: culture-jamming in the domains of freedom of speech, pharmaceutics, and pop-culture.
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01.29.06: Jessica Helfand
The D WordHGTV's sunny splendor of twenty-seven minute remodels and inexhaustible inspiration: fodder for the DIY devotee.
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01.08.06: Jessica Helfand
Civilian Typography: The Power and The FuryWithout a cell phone, or in a flood, or barred from public transportation, the thing that separates human beings from the animal kingdom is our ability to communicate verbally. If we can't do that, we do it graphically. When all else fails, the pen isn't just mightier than the sword: it is the sword.
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01.01.06: Mark Lamster
Seeing RedRed Bogart blamed technology and changing attitudes for the reason he sold Camp Tomahawk, but Mark Lamster knew there was something more to the story.
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12.19.05: Adrian Shaughnessy
Charles Dickens and The BBCWho would have guessed that a BBC costume drama would provide us with Exhibit-A in the defense's case — that a mass audience can be engaged without pandering to base instincts?
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12.16.05: Jessica Helfand
Face ValueFacial transplants mapping our future: how much is the world of design responsible?
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12.11.05: Dmitri Siegel
Bartleby™In his classic story of Wall Street, Bartleby the Scrivener, Herman Melville recounts the tale of a humble copyist employed by the story's narrator. Could Bartleby's perfectly crafted refrain be the appropriate response to a world where every choice and configuration has been designed?
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10.27.05: Jessica Helfand
The Shock Of The Old: Rethinking NostalgiaPlacing Nostalgia: where in the design landscape does it fit? And should it be included in the first place?
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10.09.05: Alexandra Lange
Married with TchotchkesFor many design-obsessed couples registering at Moss requires more strategy than playing the stock market.
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10.06.05: Jessica Helfand
On Citizenship and Humanity: An Appeal for Design ReformRuminations on the Citizen Designer: A human first, a designer second, but most importantly, one who responds to collective cultural needs.
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09.01.05: Jessica Helfand
Eye of the StormA re-entrance into the world: Following Hurricane Katrina, how should design continue?
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08.20.05: Rick Poynor
Sublime Little Tubes of DestructionIn a culture otherwise swamped with unregulated branding, the graphic counter-attack on the cigarette packet, on its visual integrity as a design and its brand equity, normally regarded as commercially sacrosanct, is a remarkable sight to behold. In Europe, in the US and around the world, outsized health warnings in ugly typography now disfigure and subvert the best efforts of the brands' designers to embody the fast-fading allure of the cigarette.
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08.12.05: Jessica Helfand
A Mosaic of Vision and MemoryLanguage, in the service of the visual, is a conceptual catalyst: and in Umberto Eco's latest book, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, words meet pictures in a captivating and indeed, an astonishing way.
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07.31.05: Jessica Helfand
Why Bugs Don't Belong on TVOn today's TV screens, the station-identification logo sits tethered to the surface, like an annoying rash that won't quite disappear. You think you've kicked it when — WHAMMMO — there it is again, blemishing the patina of an otherwise perfectly good viewing experience.
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07.08.05: Jessica Helfand
New Models for Design Efficiency: Introducing Ottoeniac Link http://www.newyorker.com/ http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/rbm/mauchly/jwm8.html http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0001NBMAS/ref=pd_sxp_f/002-9888674-0621611?v=glance&s=dvd
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06.22.05: Jessica Helfand
The Adventures of Cynic Boy and Design Mom in 3DBrainwashed I may be, but I distinctly noted an homage to Salvador Dalí — with perhaps a gentle nod to René Magritte — last night while sitting through Robert Rodriguez's ludicrous, yet oddly luscious new movie, The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D.
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06.16.05: Rick Poynor
In Memoriam: My Manual TypewriterThe fully evolved typewriter is a 20th-century industrial archetype. It feels inevitable, almost elemental, like one of those object types, such as a chair or a fork, that simply had to exist in this universe of forms.
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06.10.05: Jessica Helfand
The Cut: When Life Imitates Art (I Mean Design)CBS Television debuted its new series, The Cut, (modeled after other reality shows such as NBC's The Apprentice)about "16 aspiring designers."
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05.20.05: Rick Poynor
But Darling of Course it's Normal: The Post-Punk Record SleeveThere have been collections of post-punk music and now, finally, there is British music critic Simon Reynolds' 500-page history of the genre from 1978 to 1984. It's a brilliant book. He argues that post-punk music's explosion of creativity equals the golden age of popular music in the mid-1960s, but that it has never received its full due. I think he's right.
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04.24.05: Rick Poynor
Eduardo Paolozzi, 20th Century Image-MakerIf a visual artist created more concentrated, exhilarating images of science, technology and the media realm during the mid-20th century than British artist Eduardo Paolozzi, then I would like to see them. Paolozzi, who died on 22 April aged 81, was first of all a sculptor, but the screenprints he produced in the 1960s rank as masterpieces of the medium.
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04.21.05: Jessica Helfand
Extremely Young and Incredibly Everywhere: The Public Art of Jonathan Safran FoerJonathan Safran Foer's emergent body of work includes film and video, public art installations, theatrical collaboration, expressive typography, and a fairly prolific jumpstart as a writer. Cumulatively, all of his projects — which range from collecting empty pages of famous writers, to constructing parabolas in a public park, to collecting anonymous self-portraits — seem to look for ways to formally address time and space and the human condition.
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03.21.05: Rick Poynor
Dot Dot Dot Dot Dot Dot Dot Dot DotDot Dot Dot is the most stimulating and original visual culture magazine produced by designers since Emigre's heyday in the late 1980s to the mid-1990s.
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03.17.05: Jessica Helfand
Scrapbooking: The New Paste-Up"Craft-born embellishments," note one supplier of scrapbooking products, "are penetrating an unexpected market: graphic design."
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03.03.05: Lawrence Weschler
The Aural As An Architectonic ChallengeWhat are the people over at Transom.org up to? As it happens, this month is a very good time to pay them a visit: for the next several weeks, Walter Murch — the phenomenally smart and inspired film and sound editor — will be continuing to hold court there.
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02.21.05: Jessica Helfand
Our Bodies, Our FontsBody markings — piercings, tattoos and so forth — have recently evolved into a kind of marginalized form of graphic expression, yet one that sheds an unusual light on some of the more mainstream ways in which design often reveals itself.
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02.18.05: Jessica Helfand
My Friend FlickrFlickr is a digital photo sharing website and web services suite that was developed by Ludicorp, a Vancouver, Canada company founded in 2002. It's a utopian oddity — a culture enabled by a technology that in turn enables a culture — and it's a brilliant example of socially networked software because it's free, its easy, and it makes sense.
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02.16.05: Jessica Helfand
The New Paper Chase: Cyberspace on The Auction BlockOn February 23, Christies in New York will auction more than 1,000 items dating as far back as the early 17th century, all of it tracing the history of cyberspace.
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02.14.05: Tom Vanderbilt
Rise and Fall of Rock and Roll Graphic DesignHas heavy metal graphic design run its course? Is the band logo as a species dead? And is there much of a future for the graphic representation of popular music itself?
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02.12.05: Rick Poynor
The Ikea Riot: Unsatisfied Excess?When Ikea threw open the doors of a new store in London, the result was mayhem as customers stampeded. Evidence of social breakdown, or a sign that the utopian argument for low-cost modernist design has been won?
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06.06.04: Rick Poynor
Modernising MoMA: Design on DisplayMoMA is broadening its approach to graphic design. Recovering this material history will assist us in understanding our broader cultural history and help to educate a more aware generation of visual communicators.
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11.02.03: Rick Poynor
It's a Man's WorldAdam Parfrey’s book shows hundreds of men’s magazine covers from the 1950s painted by artists who specialized in depictions of tough guys abusing terrified women. Have we outgrown this kind of thing? Heck no.
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